Welcome, skinnedsheep:
I was raised in the "truth," by missionary parents, pioneered for many years, married an elder, the whole nine yards. Because I am a woman, I was never in line for MS/elder "privileges," of course.
I always had an uncomfortable awareness that our timeline/chronology differed from secular history but was able to quash it by telling myself that radiometric dating methods were faulty, as the Society asserts, and that historians had anti-Biblical motives. It was when I started reading some of the reference material used in the Creation book that I saw how badly the Society misused secular quotes and information. I started actually researching evolution, dating methods, archeology, etc. in earnest and the blinders fell off for good. By this time, I was married with a small child.
So what do you do? I gradually slowed down in meeting attendance and service--did the fade. S-L-O-W. Had it out with my elder husband. It was horrible and hard and heartbreaking. Ended up in therapy and on anti-depressants because, you see, when you take the red pill, you wake up with a thump to find your world fragmenting around you.
But--listen now--you come out the other side. You survive. I am lucky--my marriage survived too. And because I am a woman, my dear elder husband was able to run interference between me and the elders, you know, the "I'll take care of my own household" thing. As a male, you don't have that buffer zone. But you'll do it. And you'll find out, when you've fully emerged, blinking, into the sunlight, that the intellectual freedom and curiousity that you buried for so long as a good Witness is still there. You'll enjoy using your mind. You'll discover stuff you never knew you never knew.
If it hasn't already been said, I'll say it--read Ray Franz's book Crisis of Conscience. Order it now. You really need it at this point in your awakening.
